🥝 Two years ago I started making trips out of Melbourne to play small country pubs alone. It was really exposing for my voice, songs and guitar playing and made me want to work on all three; in particular it propelled me towards focusing on my lyric writing. Since my teens, local songwriters have always been my primary source of inspiration, and writing for this album was no different. I was looking at the songwriting of Jed Rowe, John Flanagan and Michael Waugh for cues on strong narratives and lyrics as well as songs about Australian life. I wanted push myself further in my writing and to look back and know I’d given each song every possible chance of reaching it’s fullest potential. 🥝I can listen back to the songs now with satisfaction ‘cause I know how much I put in… I didn’t quit when in the past I would have thrown in the towel, I didn’t settle on things when I knew they weren’t right or could be better. Hopefully when you hear these songs, you won’t hear the work, the frustration, the endless drafting, loosing the plot and the point and then finding them again. Hopefully you’ll hear songs that sound complete, whole and perfect, like they’ve always existed that way.The area known as Melbourne’s ‘inner north’ is where I grew up, and still live today. Northcote, Nth Fitzroy, Thornbury, Preston, Reservoir, Fairfield, Alphington, Clifton Hill, I know their streets, shops, houses and people. I am, what I like to call ‘obsessively nostalgic’. Everywhere I go here, I have memories. I can look at the landscape through my eyes or through the eyes of me as a child. My mother, grandmothers and one great grandfather also grew up in this area. I travel the same streets; ride the same trams, and where ever I go I wonder what their lives looked like. I know some of their history, where they worked and lived, some of their stories.The songs on Inner North are either set in the this area or are about it’s people, now or in times past. It wasn’t meant to be a concept album; I was just trying to follow that famous writing sentiment “write what you know”, and whist it’s a really personal record, they’re not all my stories, some belong to others, some are real, some are imagined.Thanks so much for reading, loads more exciting things to announced in the coming week, stay tuned.If you’d like to pre-order a copy of Inner North, private message me on FB or flick me an email at mountainkingmusic@gmail.comX Cat